When waiting for a speed game to start, the game does not start automatically when two players join. Both players have to accept the beginning of the game for it to begin.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:

Considering how long it takes these days for a speed game to start it seems like there should be more of a failsafe for leaving a waiting speeder to go to the bathroom or something. If there was one more stage of accepting before the game actually started you would have more freedom to start speed games and not be handcuffed to the computer while waiting. If you join a game and the other player seems to have left you just drop it and go to another. No harm done.

Seems like it would make 8-player speeders really hard to start. How many times do you see at least one player miss their first turn, even if they come back to play later. If every time this acknowledgment period was not met by a player, the game got kicked back out to sign-ups, I think it cause annoyance.

agentcom wrote:Seems like it would make 8-player speeders really hard to start. How many times do you see at least one player miss their first turn, even if they come back to play later. If every time this acknowledgment period was not met by a player, the game got kicked back out to sign-ups, I think it cause annoyance.

True, but at least it would keep the flow going. It would be annoying but you would get your game eventually and would most likely forget the annoyance as soon as the game started. I am a player who generally hops on and off and doesn't stay at the actual computer for more than a few minutes at a time. This eliminates me from most speed games these days as I don't have time to wait for them to start. I have to admit I didn't used to have this problem.

agentcom wrote:Seems like it would make 8-player speeders really hard to start. How many times do you see at least one player miss their first turn, even if they come back to play later. If every time this acknowledgment period was not met by a player, the game got kicked back out to sign-ups, I think it cause annoyance.

This is pretty much the death knell for this suggestion. If you're going to go away from your computer for a period of time such that you could potentially miss your first turn, drop the game if it is important to you not to do so.

If I join a 1v1 and my opponent misses the first turn because he hasn't seen the game yet, I'm not going to complain. That increases my chances of winning substantially.

When the last player joined a message is sent to your inbox (like it is now, or used to be anyway), and a countdown timer begins, nothing big, somewhere in the ballpark of 30-120 seconds (I like 60-90ish),that gives your average joe who's gone to take a whizz time to get his pants buttoned up, and it is't a huge inconvenience for the person waiting.

When the last player joined a message is sent to your inbox (like it is now, or used to be anyway), and a countdown timer begins, nothing big, somewhere in the ballpark of 30-120 seconds (I like 60-90ish),that gives your average joe who's gone to take a whizz time to get his pants buttoned up, and it is't a huge inconvenience for the person waiting.

I could get behind this. Even if you're at your computer, it does take a finite amount of time for whoever is going first to realize the game is up and study the initial drop before playing. This time then takes away from the time it takes to actually make your moves, which can be significant for 1 or 2 minute speed games. Anyone who goes after that doesn't have this problem because they can use player one's time to do the same thing. So I would fully support any functionality that delays the start of the game by, say, one or two minutes.

agentcom wrote:Seems like it would make 8-player speeders really hard to start. How many times do you see at least one player miss their first turn, even if they come back to play later. If every time this acknowledgment period was not met by a player, the game got kicked back out to sign-ups, I think it cause annoyance.

This is pretty much the death knell for this suggestion. If you're going to go away from your computer for a period of time such that you could potentially miss your first turn, drop the game if it is important to you not to do so.

If I join a 1v1 and my opponent misses the first turn because he hasn't seen the game yet, I'm not going to complain. That increases my chances of winning substantially.

Could it be optional then? This way the people who don't mind sitting at their comp waiting for a game to start could do so and those who would like to have to accept the game didn't have to be glued to theirs.

agentcom wrote:Seems like it would make 8-player speeders really hard to start. How many times do you see at least one player miss their first turn, even if they come back to play later. If every time this acknowledgment period was not met by a player, the game got kicked back out to sign-ups, I think it cause annoyance.

This is pretty much the death knell for this suggestion. If you're going to go away from your computer for a period of time such that you could potentially miss your first turn, drop the game if it is important to you not to do so.

If I join a 1v1 and my opponent misses the first turn because he hasn't seen the game yet, I'm not going to complain. That increases my chances of winning substantially.

Could it be optional then? This way the people who don't mind sitting at their comp waiting for a game to start could do so and those who would like to have to accept the game didn't have to be glued to theirs.

I'm not keen on this idea. The reason is that it can be used for nefarious purposes. That is, a player could start a public game and then refuse to accept it when they don't like the ranks of the players that joined.

I think anything to add MORE variety to speed games will only limit even more how many people play, some people won't join other games if they have the option between the two and this seperates players even more I think. Just my 2cents

swimmerdude99 wrote:I think anything to add MORE variety to speed games will only limit even more how many people play, some people won't join other games if they have the option between the two and this seperates players even more I think. Just my 2cents

Ok, if having more speeders is the goal then more options may in fact produce more games, instead of the opposite. I personally do not play speeders because I can't hang around for them to start. If this is true in my case then is it not possible that there are others who do not play them for this very same reason? I don't think it's safe to assume that more options would necessarily produce less active speed games. Besides, there could be a "don't care" option that meant that you just want to get in a game. In fact, this would most likely be the most popular option imho.

chapcrap wrote:The direction the suggestion is heading has been suggested before, by HighlanderAttack. He advocated a 30 time limit. His reasoning was for everyone to have a chance in those freestyle ass doodles.

No matter the reason, I would much rather have a small countdown of sorts than Funky's original proposal here.

As far as what swimmer says, I believe that is true. However, I don't think this would be an option, but a change to the current system, correct?

A 30-60 second time period sounds like a perfect solution to me. Everyone has a chance to analyze the board and make a strategy, but no one can start their turn until the period is over.

swimmerdude99 wrote:I think anything to add MORE variety to speed games will only limit even more how many people play, some people won't join other games if they have the option between the two and this seperates players even more I think. Just my 2cents

Ok, if having more speeders is the goal then more options may in fact produce more games, instead of the opposite. I personally do not play speeders because I can't hang around for them to start. If this is true in my case then is it not possible that there are others who do not play them for this very same reason? I don't think it's safe to assume that more options would necessarily produce less active speed games. Besides, there could be a "don't care" option that meant that you just want to get in a game. In fact, this would most likely be the most popular option imho.

What he is saying is that a lot of people specialize in certain settings for speed games. Giving more options means more specialties and less games would start because people will ONLY play their specialties.

I tend to agree with swimmer about that.

MoB Deadly wrote:

chapcrap wrote:The direction the suggestion is heading has been suggested before, by HighlanderAttack. He advocated a 30 time limit. His reasoning was for everyone to have a chance in those freestyle ass doodles.

No matter the reason, I would much rather have a small countdown of sorts than Funky's original proposal here.

As far as what swimmer says, I believe that is true. However, I don't think this would be an option, but a change to the current system, correct?

A 30-60 second time period sounds like a perfect solution to me. Everyone has a chance to analyze the board and make a strategy, but no one can start their turn until the period is over.

Kaskavel wrote:I agree with suggestion, especialy in the way chapcrap and MoB defines it